Tote-ally Fast and Fun

This weekend George, Monkey and I will travel to Louisiana for my niece, Stephanie's< wedding. Jamie will be ringbearer and we are excited but also a little nervous. So I wanted to make a quick to tote to for the traveling portion of this adventure. A few weeks ago I had found this pink animal print and pink flowers. So I cut it down and made a pink and black bag for me to take some enertainment stuff since I will be in a car with the Mickey Mouse for like 12-14 hours! (Now you see our apprehension!)

Well, here it is!

Here is a closer look and more of the actual color:

The flowers are just pinned on for now. I'm not sure about the placement of the number ... I may do more ...

What do you think?

Until our next cup of tea ...

Halloween Hauntings Happenin'

In case you missed it on the last post, I love Fall! When my mom came to visit at the beginning of the month I set aside a day to pull out my decorations for Halloween and access what had survived the last 2 Army moves ... only to find out I needed less than an hour. Yep, Halloween may be scary, but not as scary as unpacking from Army movers! Not much Halloween stuff survived which meant ... Shopping trip!

Last weekend while my husband jumped up and down on the sofa watching the Texans' game, I took a grumpy baby and headed over to Michael's to see what I could get with their sale and my meager $30! Ah, budgeting!

I did get some stuff, though nothing that was a "big" project. I think I'll have to dedicate some time to it next year, but here are some things I did.

This was a quick and simple but really fun project. I got a charger (actually 3, but whatever) and found these "bling" stickers after adding a little to the rim ... ta-da! Spider plate! With all the shiny things I love!It really looks cool at night when we have the candles in front of it and the lights are off ...

This centerpiece was fun to put together. I love the rich purple in our burgandy dinning room. My husband really liked the candle with the skulls and for once ... I agreed to have skulls in one of the rooms!

This little guy wasn't really a project, but he was too cute to pass up! Well, I hope everyone else is having fun with holiday decorations!

Until our next cup of tea ...

Freebie Friday: Falling in Love with Fall

I'm not going to lie, I LOVE fall. Its been hard though, being stationed in Miami these last 2 years. I miss "fall" ... the color changes, cooler weather, random hot beverages ...

My favorite holiday is Christmas and hubby's is Halloween, so we go all out! I have really been in the mood lately- taking out decorations, working on Fall/Halloween projects ... all while the temp steadily rises. Yep, the highs are in the 90s this week and I am hoping for a random cool front.

With that said, this week's Friday Freebie was super fun ... and slightly scary!

designed by: Glory Bee
Pattern found at her blog: Glory Bee-Free Boo Chart

Stitched:
September 2011

Material:
Charles Craft diamond terry weave towel with
a 16-count Aida border

Floss:
Pattern Reccommendations for DMC
with the exception of pumpkin changed to DMC 722.

Until our next cup of tea ...

Idiocracy

Have you ever seen that movie Idiocracy, where Luke Wilson plays Private Joe Bauers, the definition of "average American", who is selected by the Pentagon to be the guinea pig for a top-secret hibernation program. Forgotten, he awakes 500 years in the future and discovers a society so incredibly dumbed-down that he's easily the most intelligent person alive?

I swear sometimes I feel like I am living that in real-life. Take for example my little "quick" trip to Michaels last night for some last minute supplies for a project I am working on.

I told hubbyt I'd be quick. It's about 3 miles from the house, I planned run in grab some embroidery floos and a few sheets of scrapbook paper, maybe look at Halloween stuff on sale and be back in time to put the cooling leftovers from dinner in the fridge. Ha! Who was I kidding. By the time I made it back home, hubby had not only put the food away but cleaned the whole kitchen!

So here's what happened:

I ran into Michaels as planned. I grabbed some scrapbook paper for a flip book I am making for Jamie with his swim pictures. The got distracted by the Fall and Halloween decor (like I knew I would). There was a cute project sheet for decorating a charger for Fall so I grabbed a sheet and then remembered I wanted to grab a charger for some cinnamon pillar candles I'd been toting around for 3 years. I then wandered over to the table docor shelf and picked up a beautiful wrought iron pumpkin candle holder that was on sale for 50% off! On the next shelf was the Halloween stuff and I wanted to see what was on sale because it's hubby's favorite holiday and I wanted to decorate with stuff he'd like too. I saw these adorable black iron spider table top candleholders that were on sale for 30% off. Ah, I love sales ... Anyway, I did quick math in my head, realised I have enough cash to get it with the stuff I needed as well. So I quickly ran over to the needlepoint section, grabbed the floss that I needed and headed to the register.

Maybe it was just all falling into place too well and something had to go wrong, but when I got to my turn in line and the cashier started to ring things up, I noticed that the spider candleholder was at full price. "I'm sorry," I said, "but the spider was on sale."

No, it's ringing up full price," she said.

"I'm sure there was a sign next to it saying it was 30% or 50% off," I said, which was met with a look of boredom from the cashier. The shae radioed the manager, "There's a customer who says a candleholder is on sale but its ringing up as regualr price," she said with the most boredom I've heard in a long time. She waited a minute then said, "He said if it was on sale it'd ring up that price."

"Do you mind go look while you finish scanning," I asked, trying again.

"I guess," she said.

I ran over and sure enough there was the sign, "30% Off Celebrate It! Halloween Decor Tabletop". Not wanting to take the sign off the rack, I took 2 quick pictures with my phone making sure the sign and spiders were visable and went back to the register.

"Oh, you took a picture," said when I handed her the phone. She returned a few minutes later She stood there almost a full minute looking at the picture then radioed the manager. I'm not sure what he said, but she said, "This says 'Celebrate it! Tabletop Candleholder Collection," looking at the tag on the spider.

"Well, there were decorated candles next to it, not everything was a candleholder," I said.

"Let me go see," she said and left to go look.

I stood there feeling so bad that the lady with the infant behind me was waiting, but she assured me she'd do the same. The cashier returned and pulled out a sales paper and S-L-O-W-L-Y flipped through it. She radioed the manager again, then looked through the paper again.

"I ... guess ... I ... can ... just ... give ... you ... 30% ... off ..." she said dragging each word out as if it took every ounce of energy she had.

She finished ringing me up and I apologized to the lady with the baby again, who smiled and said no problem, before leaving.

I mean, was it really that difficult?!? You would think I was trying to get 50% off a car at a dealership, not 30% off a $4.99 candleholder! Does everything here in Miami have to be SO DARN DIFFICULT!?!

Well, I got my spider and here is a picture of it with my candles I got on sale at Yankee Candle ... Now, Yankee Candle- they have GREAT customer service!!

Until our next cup of tea ...

Freebie Friday: Spring Revisited

As I get ready to face the challenge of seasonal decorating with the assistance of a toddler, I thought I'd pay homage to spring (and maybe summer for some) with this fun freebie. .

A few years ago I had found this Spring Flower pattern by Lizzie Kate. In anticipation of Easter, I had the time to alter it a little with some of my favorite Spring colors and created this table runner.




(corners)


(center)

I started it at the beginnig of April with the goal of getting it complete for Easter ... I finished it the Saturday before- talk about close!

After Easter, I decided I liked it so much I wanted to make a dish towel with the same pattern, though I altered it a bit.



Here is the sample photo posted with the pattern link at Lizzie Kate.



designed by:LizzieKate
Pattern found at: LizzieKate's Cross Stitch Freebies
Stitched:
April 2011

Material:
(towel) Charles Craft cotton ShowCase Towels with a
rectangular 14-count Aida panel
(table runner) Charles Craft 14-count Aida Table Runner

Floss:
DMC, suggestioned colors


Until our next cup of tea ...

Freebie Friday: Flip Flops Rock!

Sorry I didn't get to post last Friday. My husband and I went to Disney WOrld to celebrate his 30th birthday and our lil Monkey stayed home with his Nana who came to visit. It was a great chance for us to finally have some "couples time". This week's project is one that I had so much fun doing. I absolutely loved this pattern when I first saw it!! Its actually a single pattern that I broke into to two pieces for a towel and a bookmarker. I repeated some of the colors that I liked and made it my own!

Original pattern ...

Here is my version ...

designed by:Janlynn
Pattern found at: Janlynn's Free Cross Stitch Patterns Page

Stitched:
May 2011
Material:
(towel) Charles Craft cotton ShowCase Towels with a
rectangular 14-count Aida panel
(bookmarker) Charles Craft lace bookmarker with 14-count Aida

Until our next cup of tea ...